Carbon farming plan set for Coast

Bill HoffmanWhether taking on developers hell-bent on destroying the Coast’s natural appeal or a Prime Minister indifferent to the plight of the poor, Bill Hoffman has never been one to mince his words. Bill’s been a journalist for 32 years, 29 of those on the Coast. Love him or hate him, he'll get you blogging.

THE Buderim dump is one of four locations in Australia to be included in a Federal Government Carbon Farming Initiative.

However the principal beneficiary of the carbon offset scheme will be LMS Energy which installed the landfill gas capture equipment at the waste facility five years ago.

Council confirmed yesterday that 95% of the carbon credits to flow from the scheme would go to LMS Energy.

First quarter figures due in about a month will reveal how much the council's 5% return is worth.

The government chose Buderim, two sites in Perth and one in Darwin all with contracts to LMS to launch the scheme's roll out.

The decision was announced last week.

However when asked to quantify the returns that would flow to councils, LMS Energy would offer no comment other than that issues were still being resolved with the Federal Government.

The government's announcement of the first four carbon offset projects, through a press release by the parliamentary secretary for Climate and Energy Efficiency Mark Dreyfus and Queensland Senator Claire Moore, appears premature.

"The Federal Government was still working closely with the landfill gas industry to ensure transition of gas capture projects from now discontinued state schemes occurs in a way that provides generous and appropriate incentives for projects to continue their important work of reducing harmful carbon pollution," a spokesman for Senator Moore said.

The response followed a question from the Daily as to what the issues were that were still being resolved with LMS Energy.

In the press release Mr Dreyfus had earlier said that Buderim and the other three rubbish dumps were expected to abate about 170,000 tonnes of CO2-e gas through landfill gas capture.

In turn the gas would generate more than 40,000 MWh of renewable energy per year or enough to power 5600 homes.

Mr Dreyfus praised project proponent LMS Energy - a division of SIMS Metal for its leadership and innovation in the waste industry.

"LMS specialises in transforming waste to energy. Their projects represent a milestone for Australia's pioneering Carbon Farming Initiative," he said.

"Overall, the landfill gas industry is now abating more than four million tonnes of CO2-e emissions every year, creating 850 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy - enough to power more than 120,000 homes."

Senator Moore said Australian businesses paying the carbon price would be able to buy carbon credits from LMS, knowing these offsets were producing multiple benefits for the community.